The Color Experience
A Photographic Study by: Kirsten Chmielewski
My project seeks to explore how we perceive color in photography, by playing with different ways to construct a color photograph. I first became interested in color as a formal connection between photographs. After playing with depth and scale in an attempt to transform the way we see the world, I discovered the possibilities of color and the possibilities of the camera to capture different color moments.
While the human eye constantly interacts with the spectrum of light to perceive color, the camera can expand or contract the length of its interaction with light through different shutter speeds. Ultimately, the camera can produce a color experience only available within a photograph. This body of work includes images that individually and collectively take as their primary concern the affect of color. It was exciting for me to discover how profoundly the colors in one photograph influence how we perceive the colors contained in other photographs.
I present these photographs in five 3×4 grids, which allows the viewer to compare photographs and indulge in a world of color. I hope to excite the viewer with my vision of color as well as invite them into an experience of seeing that privileges more directly their formal elements rather than their content.
Kirsten Captures 